(May 10, 2002) -- We post verbatim below an emailed statement by American Airlines Managing Director-Corporate Media Relations Al Becker in response to media inquiries following JetBlue's announcement it expects to be flying all 27 of its LB Airport flight slots by the end of October, 2002.
American Airlines (and separately, Alaska Airlines) have both requested permanent ("final") flight slots above LB's 41 (flying or reserved) maximum noise budgeted daily flight slots for large aircraft. American and Alaska have separately availed themselves of a city administrative appeal procedure that could bring the issue to the City Council and (if either airline doesn't like the outcome) potentially to court..
Mr. Becker's emailed statement follows. [begin text]
"The City of Long Beach has an obligation under federal law to make the airport open to all carriers on a fair and non-discriminatory basis. The City also must find a way to accommodate American's modest request for four additional permanent slots. We have no desire to litigate the issue. We much prefer to reach an agreement with the City on this issue, and in the paper we submitted to the City two weeks, we identified several possible solutions for reaching this objective. We continue to hope that this matter can be resolved without the need to litigate."
On April 29, American Airlines issued, and LBReport.com posted verbatim on May 1, a detailed background paper on LB matters. It can be viewed at: AA background paper.
